


Driven to distraction

by Pegship



Series: Castle Episodic [16]
Category: Castle
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Drugged!Castle, Episode: s07e01 Driven, Gen, Kidnapping, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 11:56:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19887310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pegship/pseuds/Pegship
Summary: My personal explanation for Castle's appearance on surveillance video in "Driven".





	Driven to distraction

"Get his feet. Make sure you get his phone."

Castle heard the voices as if from a great distance, even though he could feel breath in his face and hands on his clothes.

"Is he bleeding?"

"Not where I can see. Move it before someone comes along."

A sharp chemical odor and a dull pain in his chest told him that his driver's side airbag had deployed. He'd gone off the road - why? - and jolted to a stop down an embankment.

A third voice called out, "I got a duffel in the trunk - clothes and shit. And a garment bag."

"Bring 'em."

He felt his body unceremoniously hauled sideways, a rough hand on his lolling head, shoving at his shoulders as the man at his feet yanked him out of the car.

"Take this, put it in the car. I don't care where." Mr. Terse, again. "I turned it off, but if he had a tracking device, it'd be attached to his damn phone. He never goes anywhere without it."

More manhandling, and pain. Castle's head ached, his chest ached, and he couldn't get his eyes to open. He was rolled into the back of a vehicle and strapped down like cargo. Not in a trunk - on the floor of a van, maybe.

"Hey," he tried to croak. There was a moment of silence and stillness. One of the voices tried to say something and was cut off by the laconic man.

"Shut up. He's conscious."

Castle heard a vehicle peel out and drive away, felt the van he was in start to move. Why couldn't he move? Someone had blindfolded him and shoved his duffel bag in next to him so that his head rolled against it with every bump in the road.

Kate was waiting for him. He had to get to her, or at least get a message to her, tell her to come and find him. She'd find him, even if he had no idea where he was headed. She'd always come to find him.

Castle blinked. There was sunlight here. Too much sunlight. He let out a groan and tried to turn his head, found the motion made him dizzy, then raised his hands to shade his eyes.

His eyes - he could see, though the sun was too bright to bear. He'd been in darkness, before, and restrained, but he couldn't recall why.

He was wearing what felt like jeans and soft flannel. The brown jacket he'd packed in the duffel, his own comfortable walking shoes. He didn't recall changing - hadn't he been wearing a suit?

He was sitting on what felt like a vinyl bench seat, next to an open van door, and two men were standing just outside the van, staring at him.

"Hey," he said, woozily. "What's up?"

"How's your head?" asked one of the men. Castle tried to focus on his face through blurred vision.

"Hurts. Dizzy. What happened?"

"Your car went off the road. We rescued you."

That wasn't even half a story, Castle thought. But he remembered the most important thing about this day.

"Where's Kate?"

"Waiting for you," said the man readily. "You have one more thing to do, before we take you to her."

The fellow spoke with such confidence. He seemed to know all about Kate, and where Castle had been going - where had he been going? - and he appeared calm and decisive. So Castle asked, "What thing?"

The blue bin, Castle told himself as he headed down the alley. He had to leave the bag in the blue bin. It was something to do with a secret mission, and only he could accomplish it without raising suspicion.

There was something wrong about that logic, but his head was so fuzzy he couldn't think straight right now. He'd get this done and they'd take him to Kate, and they'd figure it out together, like always.

Castle wasn't up to striding, per se, but he managed to walk straight and tall, as though he frequented this alley often. Just a guy throwing away his trash, he thought. They wouldn't tell him what was in the brown bag, and he knew they were watching him, so he stifled the urge to peek.

There was the blue bin. He tucked the bag into a corner in the front of the bin, glanced right and left and then wished he hadn't, as it made his head swim even more. Back to the van, he thought, back to shade and a place to sit. And back to Kate.

He heard the two men talking as he approached.

"Scopolamine," one of them was saying. "They call it the zombie drug."

"There's no way we can keep him like this all the way to L.A.," said the other man. "Even if we could use a private jet. Twelve hours, you said, the dose'll last twelve hours, and that'd be cutting it too close. And raising too many questions."

"We don't have to," said the first man. "There's a place here in the city where the boss told me to take him. They're all set up for treatment, interrogation, elimination, the works."

"Well, that's a - "

"Hey, guys," said Castle as he ambled up to them. "I did the thing. Can we go now?"

The taller man, the one he'd heard first, grinned as if at a private joke. "Sure, let's go."

The other man ushered Castle back into his seat in the van. "You did fine," he told him. "Exactly what we needed. That's gonna tie up some loose ends, believe me."

"Shut up," said the taller man from behind the wheel.

Castle's companion retorted, "He's not gonna remember any of this, anyway."

"Don't count on it," said the driver.

Castle let his eyes close. His head was starting to pound again.

He woke to the sound of gunfire and shouting, but couldn't bring himself to care about it. The van was rocking, making him nauseous, and he just wanted to lie down until the discomfort passed.

Fumbling the seat belt open and off, he heaved himself over and fell on the floor of the van. He couldn't see what was happening, though the noise had been reduced to the sound of one voice, raised, urgent.

"Castle? Castle!"

Not Kate. A man, another voice he didn't recognize.

The back doors were flung open and Castle felt two fingers pressed to his neck. Feeling for a pulse? Then the owner of the fingers yelled, "Here, he's here. Alive."

No one tried to move him, which was fine. He just wanted to go back to sleep and wake up in Kate's arms.

"Richard Castle," the voice was saying urgently. "Mr. Castle, can you hear me?"

He was being pulled out of the van again, struggling to keep his feet, which had forgotten how to walk. There were two people guiding him toward another vehicle, a sedan. At least they were more gentle than his previous guides.

"Kate," he kept saying. "Need to see Kate."

'You will, Castle, you'll see her. Just come with us, now."

"Who are you?" He managed to focus his gaze on one of the men holding his arm. Shortish, sandy hair, nondescript, but his expression was concerned rather than angry.

"You can call me Jenkins," said the man.


End file.
